In defending himself against charges that his view might be...

In defending himself against charges that his view might be too conservative (insofar as he may be taken to blindly endorse the status quo of existing social institutions), Rawls states: “The point I have been making is rather a logical point”, and then he continues: “where a form of action is specified by a practice there is no justification possible of the particular action of a particular person save by reference to the practice”.[^12] Utilitarianism in the hands of Bentham and Mill is a moral theory concerned with the same substantial normative issues as are addressed by natural law theorists; Rawls transforms it into a logical doctrine.

Where in “Two Concepts of Rules” Rawls seeks to defend utilitarianism, in A Theory of Justice and other later works he seeks to develop a neo-Kantian theory of the justice of social institutions that is opposed to utilitarianism. Yet there is nonetheless a certain connecting thread between the two works, which is the importance Rawls gives to the logical structure of institutions.

The emphasis on procedural and formal justice in A Theory of Justice [^13] can be seen as a reflection of the logicist leanings found in his early defense of utilitarianism.

Focusing on Rawls’ concern with the logic of institutions allows us to see the two works within a single context, and it allows us also to see the challenge which Rawls faces: in transforming normativity as traditionally conceived into a matter of the logical consequences of rules of a certain type, rules which we adopt when we choose to engage in certain practices, Rawls (like Hart) makes questions like: “Why should we keep promises?” or “Why should we endorse a social order based on these or those principles?” of a piece with the question “Why should we play the game of chess rather than some other, slightly different game?” Let us turn now to Searle, and see how he seems to face a similar fate.